Since 1 July 2026, the cadence of employer super payments in Australia has changed. Payments that used to run quarterly now move at payday, and the complying fund must receive the contribution within seven business days. The rate itself did not change — the Super Guarantee stays at 12% — but the timing reform reshapes how TVC producers run payroll on short-cycle shoots. This is live law: Treasury Laws Amendment (Payday Superannuation) Act 2025, commenced 1 July 2026.

What Payday Super changed

The old framework under the Super Guarantee (Administration) Act 1992 let an employer accumulate super contributions across a quarter and remit them by the quarterly due date. Payday Super replaced that cadence. Every payday for an eligible worker now triggers an obligation to remit super, and the complying fund must receive cleared funds inside a seven-business-day window from payday (twenty business days for a qualifying first contribution after a start, restart or fund switch).

The super base also changed. From 1 July 2026 the 12% is calculated on qualifying earnings (QE) rather than ordinary time earnings. QE includes OTE, payments under a contract wholly or principally for labour (s12(3)), and payments for performer and film/TV work covered by s12(8) — which is exactly the territory TVC talent payments live in. The 2026-27 annual maximum contributions base is $270,830 of QE per employer.

For a producer running a monthly or ad-hoc talent payroll, that is a structural change. Super is no longer a quarterly true-up; it is a per-payrun operational task with a statutory receipt deadline and real penalties.

Payday Super, in force since 1 July 2026: Super Guarantee payable at payday on qualifying earnings, complying fund to receive contributions within seven business days. Late receipt attracts a Super Guarantee shortfall charge of up to 60% plus daily interest, and the old late-payment offset is gone. The 12% rate (Super Guarantee (Administration) Act 1992) is unchanged.

Effect on short-cycle TVC payroll

TVC payroll is short-cycle by nature. A shoot might wrap Tuesday, with the performer paid inside a fortnight, sometimes inside the week. Under the old cadence, super on that Tuesday's fee could sit inside the production company's bank until the end of the quarter. Under Payday Super, it has to be out the door to the fund within days of the performer being paid — which, for a week-to-payment shoot, is days after the shoot itself.

Multiply that across a campaign with a principal, a handful of Featured Extras, a block of extras and a voiceover booking, and the producer is running a weekly or fortnightly super run rather than a quarterly one.

Implications for TVC producers

Payroll system readiness

Any payroll platform built around quarterly super batches has to generate and remit contributions on a per-payrun basis. Clearing-house timing is now part of the calendar — a contribution sent on the payday itself may not reach the fund inside seven business days if it routes via a slow clearing house. Note also that the ATO's free Small Business Super Clearing House closed on 30 June 2026, so small payers who relied on it need a SuperStream alternative.

Cash-flow timing on multi-performer shoots

Short-cycle super tightens cash flow. The producer's obligation to remit 12% on every performer's pay lands much sooner after the shoot than it used to. On a campaign with ten performers at the CGA tier ladder, that can be a meaningful working-capital shift compared with the quarterly true-up.

The project cost builder surfaces the super-on-top column next to the performer column so the obligation is visible at the point of quoting, rather than landing as a timing surprise post-shoot.

Contractor-vs-employee classification

Payday Super did not change the underlying test for whether a performer engagement attracts super. It did raise the stakes of getting that test wrong — and the QE definition makes explicit that s12(8) performer payments are in the base. Misclassifying a performer as a contractor and skipping super was already an exposure. Now the window in which a missed contribution becomes a compliance event has shrunk from quarterly to weekly, and the shortfall charge can reach 60% of the outstanding amount plus daily interest, with no offset for paying late.

EOR and payroll-house arrangements

Many TVC producers run talent payroll through an employer of record or a specialist production-payroll house. Under Payday Super, the split of responsibility between the production company and the EOR has to be tight. Who generates the contribution batch, who remits it, who is the counterparty at the clearing house, and who is accountable for the seven-business-day fund-receipt deadline — if those aren't pinned down in writing yet, they are now overdue contract questions, not forward planning.

The 12% rate did not change

The headline is easy to misread. Payday Super is a cadence, base and receipt-window reform. It is not a rate rise. The Super Guarantee stays at 12% under the Super Guarantee (Administration) Act 1992. Producer budgets that already layer 12% on top of every performer and voiceover line — as they should — do not need to re-rate. What they need is a tighter payroll calendar. Full walk-through of the 12%-on-top mechanic in the super on TVC deals guide.

If you haven't caught up yet

  1. Confirm the production company's payroll platform remits super at payday, not quarterly — this has been the law since 1 July 2026.
  2. Confirm the clearing-house turnaround — the seven-business-day window is measured to the fund, not to the clearing house. If you used the ATO's free clearing house, it closed 30 June 2026.
  3. Revisit contractor-vs-employee classification on every recurring performer engagement — qualifying earnings explicitly captures s12(8) performer payments.
  4. If talent payroll runs through an EOR, agree in writing who owns the seven-business-day deadline.
  5. Re-check every active campaign's producer-side cost model in the project cost builder so super cash flow is forecasted, not discovered.

Routing the numbers

The performer side is unaffected — the take-home calculatorruns gross to net on the performer's hand, and Payday Super does not change what lands in that hand. The producer side is where the reform shows up, and the project cost builder treats super as a first-class column against every performer and voiceover line.

Reference only — the exact operation of Payday Super on a specific payroll, including extended statutory receipt periods and its interaction with state workers compensation and payroll tax, should be confirmed with the production accountant or a registered tax agent.